Counting birds and a very naughty cat

Last weekend Cornell University encouraged everyone to count the birds in their back yard. The information gives researchers a 'picture' of the number of birds of each species and where they are. Here are a few of the birds that were counted in my yard.

A white breasted nuthatch.

A mourning dove. Don't they look like they are wearing blue eye shadow?

A colorful collection of redpolls and gold finches.


A handsome house finch.

I also counted cardinals, blue jays, tree sparrows, dark eyed juncos, several downey woodpeckers, a hairy woodpecker, a red bellied woodpecker, a starling, and many little chickadees.



Now for something non-bird related.

This is the poster boy for Bad Catitude, Toby the Terrible Tabby.

And this is his work.

My oh-so-warm and comfy slippers.

Why in the world did he decide to de-wool them?

Nothing is safe from this devious little wrecking machine;)

Is this the face of a cat who is sorry? No, he looks kind of smug to me.

An other kind of cherry and another kind of search engine

First of all, something that will probably interest gardeners. Mr Brown Thumb has tweaked the Google search engine to give us gardeners better search results. For anyone who gets frustrated because commercial sites hog all Google's resources, try this simple alternative. I've used it several times and was please it gave me many alternatives to my searches using the basic Google engine. My Brown Thumb personally reviewed gardening sites and ranked them based on useful information about plants and other related topics. Google for Gardeners can be found by clicking the link.

I added Google for Gardeners to my Google home page by clicking on 'add stuff'' on the upper right of the Google page. When the 'add gadget' page appeared I typed the word gardeners into the search box.

Thank you Mr Brown Thumb for giving us this tool to expand our knowledge and become better gardeners;)

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My second topic is about some research on new plants I plan to add to my garden this spring.

Recently I went to a seminar on gardening in my area. One of our TV weathermen, who lectures on bee keeping and gardening, was talking about his recent gardening experiences. Somehow the conversation turned to ground cherries. He told me he loves ground cherry pie and I admitted although I remember hearing about them, I'd never eaten the fruit.

After doing a little research, I decided to add them to my garden next spring.

If you're not familiar with ground cherries or cape gooseberries (Physalis peruviana), this is what I learned. They are a member of the nightshade family along with tomatoes and peppers. In appearance they look much like their close relative the decorative Chinese lantern (Physalis alkekengi). The fruit is firm with a refreshing flavor sometimes likened to a combination of strawberries, pineapples and tomatoes. The plants are 1-3 feet in height and more upright than a tomato plant. They are grown as annuals in the colder northern zones and perennials in warmer areas.






Usually started from seed they grow and bloom quickly. Once they begin blooming they continue until frost so you will have a long season of fruiting. They require full sun and aren't particular about soil. Keep watered during development and then cut back on water as the fruit matures. You can judge the ripeness as the husk turns brown. Many people wait until the fruit falls from the bush judging this to be the perfect stage for eating. Just remember the birds will be watching too so don't leave them out there very long;)

Ground cherries can be a little bland when eaten raw but make excellent additions to salads, salsa, jams and jellies, and are most often treated like other fruits in pies, cakes and muffins. It is reported this fruit was a favorite of the Amish and Mennonites and I found many of their recipes for ground cherry pie.

Searching google I collected dozens of recipes including cupcakes and tiny pies in muffin tins,
fruit drinks, custard, and turnovers.

(Photo courtesy Veseys who sells seed)

A simple Amish recipe for pie.

• 2-1/2 cups ground cherries
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 (9 inch) pie shell
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
Wash ground cherries and place in unbaked pie shell. Mix brown sugar and 1 tablespoon flour and sprinkle over cherries. Sprinkle water over top. Mix together 3 tablespoons flour and 3 tablespoons sugar. Cut butter in until crumbly. Top cherry mixture with crumbs.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) and continue to bake for 25 minutes until crumbs are golden brown.

Reimer Seeds has seed for sale as does Solan Seeds and Veseys who also have yummy pie recipes. Remember the leaves and stems of the plant may be poisonous. Be careful, especially if you are starting seeds inside (8-weeks before last expected frost). You wouldn't want a child or kitty munching on the seedlings.

Skywatch and a Valentine wish

Another Skywatch Friday (which really takes place on Thrusday which doesn't make much sense but that's the way it's done).

The lane leading to my farm looks unfamiliar and eerie. Trees and fence posts loom up like islands in the mist and then disappear.

What better Skywatch photo than one with the sky sitting on the frozen ground. A heavy snowpack cooling the saturated air combined to create a recipe for very low clouds.

Click on the logo to be transported to the Skywatch site.





Now, on to brighter things. Valentine's day is Saturday so I want to wish you all a wonderful Valentines day. May you enjoy romance, good friends and excellent chocolate;)


This is the heirloom rose Paul Neyron-- a hybrid perpetual. It's 7-inch, fragrant blooms were the darlings of Victorian gardeners. Modern rose growers don't seem to appreciate it but it's one of my favorites. I wish I could give each and every one of my blogging frineds a bloom for Valentine's Day.

If you would like to try growing Paul in your garden, I found several bagged and bare root at Home Depot. Get him planted very early, as soon as the ground is dry enough to dig a hole.



I was looking at vintage valentines and came across lots of those little cheap cutouts cards. When I was in grade school we all exchanged these cards with our teacher and classmates.

Someone's Mom would bring pink frosted cupcakes and pink lemonade to school. For the last hour or so of class we would have a Valentine party. I wish I would have kept those little cards.

Does anyone else remember way back then? I wonder if kids still do that?




Below is a gruesome Valentine card (saved for some reason by the Maine Historical Society). You gotta love these sentiments. It was no doubt written by a man expressing his ideas of how and unmarried woman should feel.

The printing reads:

Behold my broken heart, by affliction torn.
I am pointed out by the finger of scorn.
Pray come and marry me if you can,
For I know I am longing for a man.

Indulge your cat

First I'd like to apologize. This time of the year is a busy one for accountants and I'm finding it hard to visit my favorite blogs everyday. Things will slow down soon ( I hope) and I will be back on schedule.

Miserable weather here. Not much to photograph and share with everyone. You all know animals are my first passion. I visited a local small business that manufactures cat trees. After looking at his, I spent a few minutes online with google and discovered that there are some very unique examples available. Some would surely make your cat believe he's been transported back to the jungles;)

Available in Woodstock, Illinois from Cat Tree Kingdom:

What cat wouldn't love these?

Kittens would go crazy on this tree from Great Lakes Cat Furniture in Grand Rapids.

Take a look at this jungle room from Cloud 9

This is a comfy looking tree from Hidden Hollow.

(All photos courtesy of the linked websites)

I could go on but it may be boring some of you. Anyway, I wanted to give you all plenty of time to save up your dollars--one of these would make a great Christmas gift for your own kitty;)

Dreamers

Do cats dream? It certainly looks like it. Their whiskers twitch, paws flex, sometimes they make chattering sounds. Are those really the outward signs of dreaming? This is something that fascinated me so I did some reading on the subject. I don't always agree with the conclusions of 'experts' in animal behavior but in this case their findings seem logical to me.

Scientists say cats and dogs do dream. They have studied sleeping animals and find they experience the same REM stage of brain activity that people do. While people dream about every 90 minutes, cats dream more often about every 25 minutes.

What are they dreaming? That is a question scientists can't answer with complete certainty. They know (or think they know) that cats and dogs don't have the ability to imagine or fantasize. They do have remarkable memories of past events. Based on that, scientists speculate the dreams are a series of 'pictures' from the animal's past. Possibly something that has made a lasting impression like chasing and pouncing on prey.

Next time I watch my sleeping cats waiving paws and twitching whiskers I will wonder about what past events they may be reliving in their dreams.

Tolkien must have been a cat lover (so many poets and artists are). I was surprised to find he had written a poem about dreaming cats;)

Cat

a poem by J. R. R. Tolkien

The fat cat on the mat

may seem to dream

of nice mice that suffice

for him, or cream;

But he free, maybe,

walks in thought

unbowed, proud,

where loud

roared and fought

his kin, lean and slim,

or deep in den

In the East

feasted on beasts

and tender men.

The giant lion with iron claw in paw,

and huge ruthless tooth

in gory jaw;

the pard dark-starred,

fleet upon feet,

that oft soft from aloft

leaps upon his meat

where woods loom in gloom--

far now they be,

fierce and free,

and tamed is he;

but fat cat on the mat

kept as a pet

he does not forget.

June Garden Walk

A few more photos from my June garden walks. These are just whimsical things that caught my eye. Hope you enjoy them and maybe get some ideas for your own garden.


Bikes and trikes and wagons add a casual interest to the garden especially when planted with colorful annuals. I'm searching for one to add to my garden this spring.

These last few creatures were created by a gardener who also enjoyed working with metals. This one adds kind of a south seas look to and Illinois garden.

This screaming mask may be someone's idea of a scarecrow. It scares me a little;)

This is just the cutest little caterpillar.

Roots

I wonder if genetics plays a part in people's choice of hobbies. My ancestors on both sides were farmers. I don't know if all of them had a love of growing things, maybe it was just their lot in life to be born into a farming families.

I've traced my father's family back to Virginia 1619 when Dr John Woodson landed with a company of British soldiers. Dr. Woodson built a cabin and began farming. His descendants pushed farther west and were among the first settlers in Mississippi and then on to Texas.

This is probably the oldest photo I have. This early Woodson relative left Virginia with a small group that made the treck into the unsettled lands of Mississippi and built homes and farms in the Holly Springs area.




This photo is my great, great grandfather Nathan Hill Evans (the nephew of the woman above). Nathan was a cotton farmer until he died.


His daughter Beulah looked the part of a pampered southern belle but like most women of her generation, she was tough as steel. She married a farmer, Eli Green, and they spent their early married years in Texas growing cotton. Later they uprooted their family which included my father (a baby at the time) and moved to Illinois.


Eli was the first relative (I know of) that enjoyed flower gardening as well as crops. Perhaps it was his wife's influence or perhaps he just had more free time for a hobby. Anyway, he passed that love of flowers to his son, my father who passed it to me.

My Dad tells stories of his father's flowers. There was a church near their house. On Sunday, after services, people would drive past and stop to admire the beautiful gardens. My Dad would be sent running to the barn to grab a shovel so Eli could give the visitors a start of which ever plants they admired.

Until his eyesight failed him, my father loved flowers. He lectured on creating what he called back yard habitats--places where birds and wildlife could coexist, even thrive with in residential areas. It has been a terrible thing for this man to loose his sight (his second greatest pleasure was reading). It hasn't broken his spirit. He continues to garden with my help and a few hired weeders. He simply cannot stand the thought of his home with no flowers surrounding.

More June Garden Walk

Another 6-inches of snow is falling as I type. A brutal Alberta Clipper is scheduled for tonight. 30+ mph winds and temperatures down to -20 F. My county has decided that more salt isn't in the budget so the roads are treacherous. Cars in ditches, cars in accidents. This winter just gets better and better;)

For a few moments, I'm not thinking about winter. I'm looking at garden walk photos taken last June. A sunny day, temperatures in the upper 70's, and interesting things to see in the garden.

This gardener planted a parking meter in a narrow border between walkway and drive. Cute idea.

One of the gardeners was creative with metals. This bulldog is made from junkyard scraps. A jug of sidewalk chalk waits for a child's art project or a game of hopscotch.


This gardener was also a railroad buff. Two trains chug among the perennials passing towns and farms and crossing bridges. I must have spent and enjoyable 45-minutes walking around this railroad garden.



An old milk can and a tractor seat set among the hosta.

The world is black and white and gray

My farm sleeps under a blanket of snow. Not even a breath of wind whispers in the unnatural silence.

Pine branches bend beneath the weight but the bird houses stand straight as sentinels.

The pasture stretches beyond the creek to merge with the gray sky.

In the Pasture

On the first day of snow, when the white curtain of winter
began to stream down,
the house where I lived grew distant
and at first it seemed imperative to hurry home.
But later, not much later, I began to see
that soft snowbound house as I would remember it,
and I would linger a long time in the pasture,
turning in circles, staring
at all the crisp, exciting, snow-filled roads
that led away.

by Mary Oliver

Wild grapes display a winter cloak of white.

Out of the bosom of the air
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bore,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,.Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Back to June and another garden walk

More photos snapped on a June garden walk. These things caught my eye as I strolled around yards and gardens. Hope you find some of them interesting.

It's hard to see well in this first photo. The window frames are covered in ivy. I don't know how much damage this will do to the frames but it was very attractive. The purple shrub in front is a smoke tree cotinus. They seem to be gaining popularity again. Click on the photos to see the detail a little better.

Below is a chandelier and a framed print (probably taken from a dining room somewhere and now hanging outside). The wide soffet must protect them from rain. I thought barbequing under a crystal chandelier was interesting.

A cute idea. An old western boot was made into a bird house. If I was going to copy this idea, I would hang the boot under the canopy of a tree (like a maple tree). Left in the sun these decorative birdhouses get too hot inside and kill the hatchlings.

I see mailboxes in gardens everywhere. I like the idea of having extra pruners, gloves, trowels handy to each garden area. If it was mine, I would plant a vine over it. In the winter I would put peanuts on the open door for blue jays and squirrels.

Happy New Year

We gather around the table, give thanks for the plentiful food, and talk about the weather.

Beyond the sheltered circle of house and barns the world is a bleak and dangerous place for birds. Food is buried and the winds are bitter.



Here are a few Celtic New Year traditions to bring you luck and keep you out of trouble in 2009.

Do open the front door at the stroke of midnight to let the old year out and the new year in.
Do hold a silver coin to bring you wealth in the new year.
Do give your spouse a kiss to welcome in the new year.

Don’t wear shoes which have a hole in them or financial problems will stay with you the whole year long.
Don’t wear new clothes on this day.
Don’t sweep the floor, else you’ll sweep a friend away.
Don’t do any washing, as throwing out water on this day is considered unlucky.
Don’t remove the ashes from the fire or take a burning ember from one house to another.
Don’t let the fire go out.
Don't make any money deals as money made on New Years Day will only bring bad luck.
Don’t carry any debts over into the New Year.
Don’t pay out any money on the first Monday of the New Year.



Wishing you all a Happy New Year. May 2009 see an end to these troubling times.

Christmas lights

A drive around my town on Christmas Eve.

Click on any photo to see lots of detail.

Driving home last night, listening to Christmas songs, I thought about how timeless the lyrics are and how they paint such beautiful word pictures of our collective Christmas memories.

The lyrics to White Christmas were written in 1940 by Irving Berlin and introduced by Bing Crosby in the movie Holiday Inn (1942). It became very popular with WWII soldiers and their families because it expressed their longing to be home with family at Christmas.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten
and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.

I'll Be Home for Christmas is one of my all time favorites. It was written the year after White Christmas by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent. It too touched the hearts of soldiers and their families alike. When you listen, it's easy to picture a soldier writing these words to loved ones back home.

I'll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

Silver Bells paints a vivid image of busy city streets. Shoppers bundled in coats and mittens hurrying past window displays. Colored lights everywhere reflecting off falling snow. Written in 1951 by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans it was first sung in the Bob Hope movie The Lemon Drop Kid.

Strings of street lights
Even stop lights
Blink a bright red and green
As the shoppers rush home
With their treasures

Christmas carols celebrating the birth of Christ date back to 760AD. They never became popular because they were all written in Latin. Not until 1223 when St. Francis of Assisi started his Nativity Plays in Italy were carols sung in the language of the people listening to the plays. Minstrels traveling through Europe spread the songs, changing the language with each country they visited.

In 1647 Oliver Cromwell came into power and banned carols. People continued to sing them in secret thus keeping them alive until in Victorian times they became popular again.

It would be hard to choose a favorite Christmas carol, there are so many lovely ones. Certainly one of the most beautiful is Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem, written in 1865 by an Episcopal clergyman, Philip Brooks. His visit to the town of Bethlehem inspired him to write a poem. I love this line. No one could ever say it more beautifully.

The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear was a poem written by Edmund Sears, the pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wayland, Massachusetts. Ten years later, Richard Willis, an American composer, created the melody.

Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
From heaven's all gracious King
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.